Document preparation service faces lawsuit

EDINBURG — Seven customers of a McAllen firm that prepares legal documents for its clients have sued the company, saying it offered them faulty legal advice without having a license to practice law.

The women accuse Documents and More of making egregious mistakes on their divorce court filings that could have permanently affected child custody and property disputes with their former spouses.

"All of the money I paid them was for nothing," said Diana Leticia Armendariz, a 33-year-old Peñitas mother who is now one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Monday. "If I would have known, I would have gone to an attorney to begin with."

Documents and More, located near the intersection of Pecan Boulevard and North 10th Street in McAllen, has come under scrutiny in the past from local judges who say its customers show up unprepared for court hearings and with paperwork that has been incorrectly filled out.

The service - which targets low-income clients - helps people represent themselves in simple court matters such as divorces, business incorporation or setting up legal trusts at half the cost of hiring an attorney.

Customers pay a flat $400 fee to have paralegals help them fill out legal documents based on their responses to a simple questionnaire. Each is advised that there are no attorneys on staff and if they have any questions they should consult with a lawyer, Documents and More owner Marty Wasserman said in May.

He declined to be interviewed for this story, saying he had not had a chance to review the lawsuit against his company.

But his critics and those of the hundreds of other document preparation services across the country argue that such operations defraud their customers and offer backhanded and often misguiding legal advice without a license to practice law.

Employees too often oversimplify complex legal processes in a situation in which mistakes could have lasting implications, said Cindy Dyar, an attorney for the nonprofit Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, who is representing the women in the Documents and More suit.

"I think what they're doing is toeing the line," Dyar said. "When there are kids and property involved in a divorce, it can get complicated really fast."

One popular chain - We The People Inc. - has been sued in more than five states for offering legal advice without a license to practice law. In 2004, the state Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee obtained an injunction barring the company from operating within Texas.

Wasserman, once the We The People franchisee in McAllen, said in May that his current business has no connection to the prior company even though it occupies the same storefront, employs many of the same people and maintains customer files opened under his now defunct predecessor.

Either way, he argued in May, it shouldn't matter. His office explains its limitations to every customer at the outset.

"A lot of times people come in here and they don't understand what we're doing, no matter how many times we explain it," he said.

But for Maria Mendez, 30, of McAllen, the process quickly grew thornier than she had originally been led to believe.

After saving up money for months to divorce her allegedly abusive husband, the single mother of two opted to represent herself at the suggestion of Documents and More employees.

Her primary concern was making sure her husband did not have visitation rights or joint custody of the children and she explained that to the company when filling out the court filings, she said.

But the preparation service's staff incorrectly advised her that she would have to wait a year after her divorce was finalized to seek termination of her husband's parental rights, according to the lawsuit.

The documents the company prepared for her would have granted her husband standard visitation rights and eliminated her rights to any property acquired during her marriage had they been signed by a judge.

The judge, however, refused to sign Mendez's divorce decree after realizing the filings did not match up to her answers before the bench.

"If the judge would have signed it, he could have taken my kids whenever he wanted," she said. "It could have been dangerous."

Mendez has yet to obtain a divorce.

She and her co-plaintiffs are asking a jury to refund the money they paid Documents and More and award them damages for the company's alleged fraud, negligence and deceptive trade practices.

State District Judge Ricardo Rodriguez Jr. has not yet set an initial hearing date on the lawsuit.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.